Two urgent building projects will be taken up by annual Town Meeting Monday.
At a pre-Town Meeting warrant review last night held at the Avery Elementary School, the public raised questions about how the town would afford to build both a new senior center and a new Avery Elementary School over approximately the next two decades.
"If we go forward with this project, are we still able to go forward with other projects?" asked Susan Fay of Walnut Street. "I can't honestly vote for one without knowing how it impacts the other."
Fay was wondering how the $9.7 million senior center proposed for High Street might affect the town's ability to pay for other much-needed projects, including the new Avery school. The state School Building Authority said the 87-year-old structure on High Street is among the worst educational facilities in the state, due to leaking walls, inadequate ventilation and antiquated plumbing.
"That's actually a very good question," said Town Administrator Bill Keegan. "It appears that there is a window of opportunity that the debt rolls off in 2015. ... If you would add the two debt situations together, you could potentially pay for both under the schedule we have right now. We think it could work. We're trying to minimize the impact on taxpayers in the community."
The Avery School was built shortly after World War I, said School Building Rehabilitation Committee member Andy Lawler, and the 550-square-foot classrooms are not conducive to the interactive learning, heavy computer use and visual classroom aids that are part of modern education.
Town Meeting will be asked to consider spending $300,000 for a feasibility study to identify the building's shortcomings and propose solutions. Forty-seven percent of the cost of the study will be eligible for reimbursement by the school building authority.
A new school is estimated to cost about $16 million, said Keegan, 47 percent of which would be eligible for reimbursement.
Construction of the new senior center is more imminent. The town will ask Town Meeting to vote whether to authorize the Board of Selectmen to hold a special election in June for a debt exclusion to support appropriating funds for a senior center.
Should the override pass, construction would begin on the new center in the spring of 2009 and wrap up a year and a half later. The new senior center is expected to cost the average homeowner $61.05 per year, said Building, Planning and Construction Committee member Robert Naser.
Now is the right time for the town to build a new senior center, said Naser, pointing out that the project has been in the works for 20 years.
"Of course the biggest opportunity is that the site is available to us. That is a major opportunity. We know that land is limited in the town of Dedham and just having a site to build on is a great opportunity," said Naser.
Right now the Council on Aging is operating in 2,400 square feet of space at the Traditions of Dedham on Washington Street where there are only 12 parking spaces and no bathroom or kitchen, said Jasset.
"The longer we wait, the more likely it is the cost will increase," said Jasset. Twenty-one percent of Dedham's senior population is age 65 or older. Thirty-one percent of homeowners in town are age 55 or older. That's about one-third of residential taxpayers, she said.
"They are our past and present selectmen, School Committee members, firefighters, policemen, teachers, coaches, Town Meeting members, PTO parents and so on."
Daily News staff writer Anna Kivlan can be reached at 781-433-8336 or at akivlan@cnc.com
